Word Upon Word
by Rabid Lola
Summary: Collection of Ban x Himiko fics, written for the LJ community otp100. Ratings for individual stories inside. 8. How much do you care about her, Banchan? 9. He didn't know when her scent had begun to soothe him.
1. Things You Do

**Author's Notes: **Because I thought it would be fun, and because I need to write, I went and claimed Ban x Himiko for the LJ community otp100. :D And so, happy. I wonder if I'll actually finish this challenge. Hahaha.

I haven't written since forever. OO

**Title: **Things You Do  
**Fandom:** Get Backers  
**Characters:** Midou Ban x Kudo Himiko  
**Prompt: **#008, Cops  
**Word Count:** 991  
**Rating:** PG, for very minor bad language.  
**Author's Notes: **Ooooh. It's longer than I expected. And it's not sappy. That's an achievement. XD

* * *

You know, there are certain things you swear never, ever, _ever _to do. Not if you were paid a million yen; not if you _had _to. 

But what usually happens is that you end up doing them anyway. Sooner or later. You're not necessarily paid a million yen, and you don't _have _to—there's just some annoying thing that keeps poking and prodding you until you give up and cave in.

_There was a time when I swore I would **never **help Midou Ban. _

_Then…things changed. And I **know **I swore that I'd never help him get out of trouble. Especially if he deserved it._

Himiko sat astride her motorbike, tense and watchful. The engine was revved up; she was ready to go. Ban had actually urged her to go, snapped it at her fiercely before turning to butt heads with the handful of cops that had been guarding their target.

She couldn't help but roll her eyes. He was taunting them now, the idiot, stance relaxed, hands shoved into his pocket and head raised. His back was to her, but she could picture his face: his head tilted up in his trademark, arrogant angle, his lips curled into a sneer, his shades slipping half-down and his eyes glimmering too bright a blue, the epitome of scorn and pride.

_I know him too well. Ugh. _

The cops looked enraged, uncertain, and disoriented all at once.

She wondered if Ginji was well on his way to the meeting point with the client. Technically that was _her_ job. _She _was the transporter after all. But these were the Get Backers, and even if they always pulled through, they didn't always do things according to plan. They liked to improvise a lot.

She was pretty sure that the world could get along fine without Ban's brand of improvisation, though. Especially since whatever improvised things that came out of his mouth were enough to make anybody shoot him on the spot.

"…you guys think you can take on Ore-sama, then you're all…"

Himiko sighed, switched off the engine, and swung one leg over the other side in a graceful dismount. Unhurriedly, she strolled over to the idiot who really should learn when to keep his mouth shut and the cops who were steadily looking less confused and more enraged.

--

Ban, in the meantime, was not being as stupid as the transporter girl had thought. His insults were carefully calculated to piss off, but not to provoke. His eyes flicked coolly over the faces of the cops, and the gears of his brain were whirring like mad. He was trying his best to keep the insults in the low-key-irritating category right now, because he didn't want to waste any time fighting since he was pretty damn hungry and _crap _it looked like they were going to put up a fight after all…

There was a sweet, wavering scent in the air, and instinctively (he had never gotten rid of this habit that had been learned the hard way; he knew that it was a useful one to retain) he held his breath. His eyes narrowed when Himiko came into his line of vision. _Stupid, I told you to run away! _

_(Stupid. She'd never do that.) _

"Anything wrong, officers?" she asked lightly, standing just in front of Ban, just a little too close to the nozzles of five guns. Ban's hands twitched with the urge to pull her back and shove her behind him, _too damn close—_

The eyes of the five policemen were slowly becoming vacant, docile, harmless, forgetful. Their guns were lowering slowly, their rigid shoulders relaxing. They shook their heads dazedly.

A low whisper. "Oi. Hurry up, I'm holding my breath here."

Himiko shot a glare at him before saying pleasantly, "I think there's something you should be guarding back there, ne?"

The five cops nodded and turned, and shuffled away.

Himiko let out her breath and whipped around, urgently shoving Ban in the direction of her motorbike. Before he could protest, she was on it and snapping at him to get on, hurry, and cursing, he vaulted over the back of the seat and into the sidecar just before she zoomed off.

--

"I told you to _run_, you know."

"You were being stupid."

"I could've taken them easily."

"I know. But my way was faster."

Ban grumbled something and slouched in the seat of the sidecar. She smirked and told him smugly, "Well, it was."

_I **know** that. _And now a brief, sharp image was flashing through his mind's eye—guns, guns trained point-blank on Himiko, Himiko too close to the guns…

"I don't need you to protect me," he said snidely, not caring how brusque that had sounded. He wanted it that way. He sneaked a glance at her face and saw that the remark had stung; he turned away.

But miraculously second after second ticked by, and she didn't shout back. And Ban was just about to give up and ask if she'd heard him when her voice came, steady and sure. "I'll stop doing it when you do."

He jerked around to look at her, incredulous. And for a fraction of a second she turned to fix him with her gaze—calm and challenging, knowing and speaking.

_You won't stop protecting me. And even if you did, I won't stop doing the same for you, whenever I can. _

Her eyes were fixed on the road again; his eyes were fixed on her. _Don't trap me like that, dammit…_

"Ban. Duck."

"Gah!" Ban recoiled as a branch gave him a solid _thwack _on the forehead. "What the hell! What branch hangs that _low_? And why didn't you tell me _sooner_!"

Himiko shook her head and grinned as they entered a road that ran between rows and rows and trees.

"Just shut up and let me drive, Ban. We're almost there."

-end-


	2. Hanging by a Moment

**Title: **Hanging by a Moment  
**Fandom:** Get Backers  
**Characters:** Midou Ban x Kudo Himiko  
**Prompt:** #071, Time  
**Word Count:** 520  
**Rating:** G

**Author's Notes: **So many italics. And it's a very general sort of fic; if you take out certain things it can pertain to any couple you think would fit it at all.

In any case, here it is. : )

* * *

They don't throw the occasional sappy, sneaking glance at each other.

They don't have moments when their eyes meet, and they blush, and look away.

They don't try to touch each other more than need be; there's no way of telling, then, if they'd feel a thrill each time one felt the other brush by.

They are very, very much _aware _of each other. Not in the way that stretches nerves and makes the senses tingle in anticipation; not in the way that they become so tense, so focused on each other that the very air between them hums and sings so loud, so loud and _everyone _around them senses it while they themselves wonder if the other can feel it.

Not that way.

But they _are _aware, they are aware. It is like standing back to back to each other, not touching, a few feet away; facing out and facing others, but always with a sixth sense that is tuned to the presence behind. The sixth sense is not focused and is in fact rather dim; it is more something that was always there and thus is comforting and old and overlooked in its familiarity.

(Perhaps it is because they _don't _focus that this bond changes slightly, ever so slightly, day by day.)

They _do_ find themselves idly staring in the other's direction, at times (like when the sun slants golden through the Honky Tonk windows to warm brown skin, or when cigarette smoke wreathes gray upwards and softens the sharp planes of a half-foreign face), but there is no embarrassment in this self-discovery. There is a certain pleasantness in seeing the other, but there is no wild thumping of an amorous heart.

They do look each other straight in the eyes, sometimes by chance, sometimes on purpose (blue snaps sharply, purple answers coolly, and then both shades soften in wry admittance of hello); there is always a greeting, and always an acknowledgement.

They do know that they are both not touchy-feely people, and at the same time, they know exactly how heavy or exactly how light a hand on the shoulder needs to be to comfort, or to soothe, or to encourage, or to stop; they know how a light punch to the shoulder can give a much-needed answer to an unasked question.

They _are _aware of each other. They know that even if the air between them isn't humming ROMANCE, there is that attunement to each other that is different from that they give to everyone else. They know that there is something there, something hiding, and it's not uncomfortable or awkward, and its coming will be the most normal thing in the world and the most earthshaking, but it's not now, it's not yet.

They're both hanging in this long moment before something that may or may not become; they're reading each other, watching each other, not on tiptoe and not with bated breath—they're both waiting for the go, waiting for the signal that will make them turn, so he can fully face her, and she can fully face him.

It's only a matter of time.

-End-

_I'm standing here until you make me move  
I'm hanging by a moment here with you. _

--Hanging by a Moment by Lifehouse


	3. Rebirth

**Title:** Rebirth

**Fandom:** Get Backers

**Characters:** Midou Ban x Kudo Himiko

**Prompt:** #078, Rebirth

**Word Count:** 314

**Rating:** PG, just to be safe. Perhaps because of the theme.

**Author's Notes:** More speculative than romantic, but there's a hint somewhere, methinks. Heehee.

Pre-Voodoo Child arc. Or during it, if you prefer, but before the last ten chapters or so. But there are definite spoilers for that far in the manga.

* * *

This was one thing Ban feared. He didn't believe in being born again—past lives, having more than one given span of time on this earth and all that. Or, more accurately, he hadn't ever seriously thought about it enough to care whether it was true or not. But this was not the kind of rebirth he feared.

Time was racing by, racing too fast and too sudden for his liking. Things, major events, earthshaking realities were coming too near, happening too soon. It would be time for _her _to face her curse, that black birthright that had been stamped on her from the moment of her first rebirth.

For over the years that had passed since he'd killed her brother, and over the months since he'd met her again, he'd researched, poured all he could (especially recently, especially **_now_**) into finding a way to save her. And he'd discovered the secret of her making, how she'd been killed before being born, then magicked back to life and gaining her mirror, her double.

He couldn't kill either (he didn't want to). The alternative so that they may be saved: they'd have to become one. _How_, he didn't know. What he could _do_, he didn't know. But he had a theory of what would happen after.

_Rebirth. _They'd become one, Himiko and the other Himiko, one person, one body and one soul.

But which one?

Would it be one of them, only? Or someone completely new?

He had his personal reasons, selfish reasons, granted. _Would she still live? I can't break that promise._

_(Would she still know me?_

_I can't lose her)_

But he had a sense of justice, too.

_It wouldn't be fair, to either of them. _

Ban grit his teeth, but couldn't push aside the thoughts. They were too urgent, too here, too now.

_The time is nearing. What the hell can I **do**?_

-EnD-


	4. Important Decision Making

**Title:** Important Decision-Making (Or, the Power of the Smirk)

**Fandom:** Get Backers

**Characters:** Midou Ban x Kudo Himiko

**Prompt:** #034, Mini-van

**Word Count:** 314

**Rating:** G

**Author's Notes:** Set in the AU Universe I kinda built up for the Get Backers and Co. a few years back. Yes, frankly, I missed writing the kids. Though they don't feature much here, haha. There is an allusion to the first fic in the series, though. See if you can spot it. :D

* * *

Ban frowned. He was leaning forward, one hand propped up on one knee, the other hand scratching his head. He shoved up his shades, grumbling. His blue eyes were sparking annoyance, but they were cowed in the face of a smirk on a certain woman's face. 

Himiko rolled her eyes. "You're going to say it's expensive."

The taunt prompted him to lose all fear of whatever sardonic expression was on her face and he shot a glare at her. "Whose idea was this?"

Himiko raised her hands in defense. "it was Natsumi who brought home the catalogue. But true, I was the one who said we should seriously consider it." Beside her, the former waitress winced.

Ban grumbled again, then raised his voice. "Oi, Ginji. Our wives want something."

His blond partner put down one hyperactive kid on the steps of the home, patted said kid's spiky brown head and told him to wait, then bounded over, genki as ever. "What is it, Ban-chan?"

The other Get Backer gestured at the kitchen table and at the shiny, glossy pamphlets that showed mini-van after mini-van.

They looked at each other.

Then they looked at their household. One Midou Yamato, sprawled on the floor with paper and pencil in front of him, like he was writing some sort of essay. One Amano Teshichan, kneeling quietly beside her friend and observing, hands folded in her lap. The next-generation Ban and Ginji, the former having dragged the latter from his previous place on the stairs and now racing him up and down the flight. The youngest Midou toddler playing around his mother's feet. Said mother with a smug, eyebrow-up expression. And a very pregnant, sheepish-looking Natsumi.

Himiko watched Ban's facial expression change, smirking. "You see the point?"

Ginji gave a vigorous nod, and Himiko's husband finally grunted and jabbed a finger downwards. "Fine. We'll get this one."

-EnD-


	5. Pizza

**Title:** Pizza

**Fandom:** Get Backers

**Characters:** Midou Ban x Kudo Himiko

**Prompt:** #017 Pizza

**Word Count:** 991

**Rating:** G. Through and through. XD

**Author's Notes:** AU, and there's a fair amount of Ginji x Natsumi too. : ) Drabble.

Pizza is a staple of the Get Backers household. The kids know it as the most delicious food on earth, served every Friday night, made sometimes by the Amano mother, sometimes all together, and sometimes, on very special days, by Paul-san. Pizza is just the thing to make a day happy again; for their parents, pizza is something that is scattered unobtrusively through their memories, over and over and over.

Natsumi's very first memory (and many of her fondest memories since) of two certain incorrigible, inseparable men--that formed the most _excellent_ retrieval duo--involves pizza. Pizza being fought over, torn apart, flying all over the place, and ending up crammed into the brown-haired, blue-eyed half's big mouth while the blond-haired, dark-eyed half sulked. She giggles sometimes when she makes pizza, always remembering what a funny sight her husband and Ban-san would make.

Ginji loves pizza for pizza's sake, but he has at least one very favorite memory involving the food: making a pan of it with a pretty, bubbly young waitress. In this memory there is flour and sauce and dough and cheese all over the place, twinkling eyes half-hidden by mussed black bangs, bell-like laughter and stolen glances and gentle accidental touches, and a sweet first kiss.

Ban likes pizza because it's good, it's cheap, and he can always wheedle and whine until Natsumi makes one for free. Squabbling with Ginji over it is no memory; he _still _does it everyday, more out of faithful tradition than anything else. However, there are two memories that would stand out in his mind, if you pressed him to recall some of the best and worst moments of his life. One is of a young woman with green hair and red-rimmed eyes standing awkwardly in the doorframe of a long-ago apartment, apology all over her face for something that had been his fault, and a pizza to patch up their fight in her hands. The second is shredding a pizza slice into bits, eternity crawling by before the same young woman places trembling hands over his (to save the pizza and stop the mutilation, she always claimed) and says yes.

And Himiko laughs at pizza, and stands it only because her family loves it. She is not as fond of it as everyone else. She thinks perhaps she makes up for it every time she is pregnant, and it is the only thing she craves for. (And perhaps she gets a kick out of the fact that this is the only time her husband ever willingly gives up his share of said pizza.)

They are all seated around the dinner table, a motley assortment of dark-and-light-colored heads, two men and one woman and six or seven children laughing and chatting and shouting and scolding, but one family, nevertheless. And there's the _ding_ of the oven and the smell of cheese and tomato sauce and pepperoni (for tonight) as Natsumi's voice rings out clear, and a small sigh of appreciation runs around the table.

Yes, pizza is a staple—_the _staple, of the Get Backers household.

--EnD--


	6. Just One Minute

**Title:** Just One Minute

**Fandom:** Get Backers

**Characters:** Midou Ban x Kudo Himiko

**Prompt:** #072 Minute

**Word Count:** 310

**Rating:** PG

**Author's Notes:** Okay, fine, I _know_ the title's overused like freaking heck, but…it fits. At least I think it does. Drabble inspired by a scene from the manga (squee!) but it's not my interpretation of that part or whatever. Drabble includes some stuff that are manga-only, and is finally hopelessly plotless, so I beg thy forgiveness in advanced. :D For those who don't know, Ban's blood has the ability to--well it's either heal or restore life, I'm not sure which. In any case, he transmitted it once by kissing someone.

-----

Just one minute.

One incomprehensible, _unbelievable_ minute—he was kneeling over her, was pressing her tightly against him, his face buried in her shoulder as hers was in his. Dust and smoke and debris and destruction surrounded them, and blood from him, blood from their enemies, and most of all blood from her. His lips were bleeding, she knew. She could still taste him and his blood, feel the ancient magic from his kiss of life thrumming through her veins, restoring her, lifting the shadow that had nearly claimed her. The haze in her mind was clearing, and she could feel her legs folded uncomfortably under her, was conscious of her hands caught between their bodies, clutching tightly at his torn shirt—

_Yet again,_ she thought, dizzy and detached. _Another shirt completely ruined in battle. _

His arms were wrapping her possessively close; his breathing was choked, shuddering and erratic. Had she not known him better, she would have thought he was trying not to cry.

_Just one minute—_

It wasn't a dream. 

"Ban," she spoke in a small, scared voice, raising her head weakly.

She felt him shift his grip only so he could turn his face into her hair. She felt wetness on his cheek, and she struggled to comprehend that he was, indeed, crying.

His exhale was long, slow, shaky, his breath ghosting warm over her neck. "You and your idiotic bravery—don't scare me like that _again_, you stupid, stupid girl," he said, voice hoarse and broken.

She squeezed her eyes shut and _still_ felt the tears leak out. "I'm sorry." Her voice cracked and shuddered, she tried in vain to control her sobs. She buried her face into his shoulder again, her words escaping her as if of their own will. "I love you."

His reply was only to tighten his embrace, and to whisper fiercely, "Then _stay_."

-EnD-


	7. Like Lovers

**Title:** Like Lovers

**Fandom:** Get Backers

**Characters:** Midou Ban x Kudo Himiko

**Prompt:** #059 Lovers

**Word Count: **686

**Rating:** PG-13.

**Author's Notes:** Plotless. But it was kind of fun to write all the same. XD It's set on a random retrieval mission, probably when Himiko was asked to cooperate, and then Ban and Ginji split to accomplish different things, and well, she chose to go with Ban. So.

Was also glad I managed to make something not-quite-scary out of what I found to be the most difficult themes in the list. XD Maybe next time I'll write something with a real plot. XP

----------

"Crap! Duck in here and look like we're necking!"

Ban's command was a whispered hiss, and Himiko barely managed a strangled "_What?_" before she found herself against a hard brick wall in a dark alley, with Midou Ban far closer to her than she thought necessary. She couldn't help but flush red.

_Talk about compromising positions…! _

His arms were along either side of her head; as she stood frozen, staring at him like he'd lost his mind, he swiftly angled his head so it blocked any passerby's view of their faces.

Which also made it look like they were…busy.

"Help me out here," he muttered, just loud enough for her to hear.

"What are you _doing_?" Still unsure and just a little bit piqued, Himiko gripped his shoulders, debating between violently pushing him away (or kneeing him good) and just letting him, well, stay there. Normally she'd choose the first option, but she had a hunch he was doing this for a good reason. Mostly because if he'd really been hitting her, the direct "_look like we're necking!" _wouldn't be his style.

(There was the fact that the situation was not entirely unwelcome, but she did _not_ want her mind to elaborate on that.)

She tilted her head to the side to get a better view of his face, trying her best to quash the funny, fuzzy feeling spiraling in her stomach. "Midou _Ban._ Explain to me why we're here _trying_ to look like lovers. This is not something I'd normally want to do."

"Shut up," he snapped. Interesting, it didn't sound like he'd taken it as an insult to his person as he usually would have. And he didn't notice it hadn't been delivered with much conviction, either. "In case you didn't notice, the guy we were trailing suddenly doubled back and would have seen us."

"How will you know when he's stopped looking, or when he's passed by?" Her hands relaxed on his shoulders.

"Hmph. It's me, I'll know."

"And why this stupid necking thing? Don't you have any better ideas, you pervert?"

Ban lowered his head a bit more until his mouth was right beside her ear, and breathed, "To the public eye, what else would a man and a woman be doing out at this hour?"

She simultaneously shuddered, mentally cursed, and tried not to inhale too sharply. He snorted in unholy amusement. "I felt that."

"…Arrogant _jerk!_" Her temper flared and she kicked him in the shin. Ban swore and lifted his head, only just keeping himself from hopping back. "What's your problem? You'll blow our cover!"

"I wish I'd chosen to go with Ginji," she said tartly.

That made him look at her and raise his eyebrows. "You wish Ginji were the one doing this, instead of me?"

She rolled her eyes. _Ginji wouldn't have thought of this in the first place! _"No, you idiot!"

(In retrospect, it'd always end up like this. He'd do something that in more normal conditions would be considered making a move, and she'd always end up thinking, what if, _what if…_)

"Hmph. Like I believe you." He covered her mouth with one hand to stifle her outraged exclamation—a movement at the mouth of the alley had caught his eye. He bent over her again, whisper soft but piercing. "All right, we give chase on the count of five. One. Two. Three. Four. Five—umph!"

Ban's mind blanked out and he felt his eyes go _wide_ when the girl pulled him forward by the collar for a light, not-quite-brief kiss, then abruptly shoving him away.

"What the—"

"Believe me," she snapped, a bit breathless, before slipping out from under his arms and running to pursue their target.

Ban found himself blinking and just a bit dazed; he shook his head to snap out of it and cursed before following her.

**-EnD-**

Ginji couldn't contain his uproarious laughter as Ban dragged a sputtering Himiko out of the Honky Tonk. This time, she found herself with her back to their car.

"_What are you doing?_"

His eyes gleamed down at her as his hands thudded down on either side of her face. "_Nobody _steals kisses from _me_."


	8. How Much

**Title:** How Much

**Fandom:** Get Backers

**Characters:** Midou Ban x Kudo Himiko

**Prompt:** #79, Heal

**Word Count:** 1,528

**Rating:** PG

**Author's Notes:** DRAMA. So much drama it made me laugh. And note: making these two _apologize_ to each other is NOT easy. Not easy at all.

* * *

The quiet _click_ of the apartment door as it shut. The stunned, gaping silence that followed. The slow simmer of outrage and frustration, the angry roar building, building up in his throat until he lost it and loosed it, slamming one fist into the plaster of the wall, not caring if it cracked and buckled under his anger, not caring if Ginji could hear him as he descended the stairwell of their building.

It wasn't his partner he was angry at. Ginji would know, even if Ban was following his name with a string of curses.

Chunks of wall thunked dismally to the ground as Ban yanked out his hand and wheeled around, aiming a kick at one of the chairs. The cheap plastic broke and split, and Ban stood there, breathing hard, fist clenched, head bowed, teeth gritted.

And pain welled up in his chest, threatening to burst out, prickling at the back of his eyes.

"_How much do you care about her, Ban-chan?"_

Ban growled as he heard again Ginji's quiet, serious voice, saw again the somber look in his partner's eyes.

Then he folded against the floor, letting his head fall back against the wall with an audible, exhaled curse. Emotion after emotion was whirling around inside him, creating one big, indecipherable mess. He yanked out a cigarette and pulled out his lighter, stopped short when he saw the initials and remembered who it had belonged to.

_Oh crap. I can't even smoke without remembering something connected to her. _

He lit the stick anyway, and smoked to calm himself. But it barely, barely helped.

Slowly, the anger in his sharp blue eyes were eclipsed by self-loathing; his mouth twisted into a snarl of bitterness, pain, and bleakness.

"_You haven't talked to her in weeks."_

"_It's her fault!" _had been the vehement reply. The vehement _denial_. It wasn't her fault, he knew it and Ginji knew it too, even if he hadn't been there. It was never her fault when they argued; he just wouldn't stop, wouldn't know when enough was enough. They'd been fighting so much more lately, like they couldn't help it. And they thought everything would be all right after her seventeenth birthday.

The last argument had been _big_. Big enough to make them both angrier than they'd ever been, big enough to make them yell at each other that they never wanted to see each other again.

And it _hurt_, it hurt more than he'd ever dreamed, than he'd ever suspected it could. Hadn't he learned anything from being a Get Backer?

"_How much do you care about her, Ban-chan?"_

"_What the __**hell**__, Ginji? You know the answer to that!"_

_Precious things are easily lost. And when you lose them…_

"_**I**__ know._

"_Ban-chan, I don't know if __**you**__ do."_

…_You'd do anything to get them back._

_His partner's quiet footsteps towards the door, the weighty truth of his words sinking in. And the last thing he said. "Think about it, Ban-chan."_

"I'm thinking, Ginji," he muttered to himself, his head falling into his hands. "Dammit, dammit, dammit."

The minutes ticked by, and Ban remained there with his head in his hands, in the tiny apartment with a broken chair and a busted wall, and the mid-afternoon sun shining through the open windows.

Finally he reached his decision, lifted his head and picked himself up off the floor—then stopped. He could hear light footsteps outside, somebody's quick breathing from climbing the stairs, and a girl's voice muttering something that sounded suspiciously like self-encouragement.

Ban crossed the room in three quick strides and yanked open the door. And Himiko froze, one hand on the doorbell, the other propping a flat pizza box against her hip.

Ban took an involuntary step back, paused at the brief hurt look that flashed over her face. He couldn't stop his eyes from taking in every detail of her: the red-rimmed, downcast eyes, the tense, tired lines of her face, the slight trembling of her hands.

She hadn't lost weight or anything extreme like that, but everything about her said she'd been as torn up as he had.

Slowly, she took her hand off the doorbell; slowly, he stepped aside to let her in. She hesitated just inside the doorway, and this close he realized that her breathing was labored not just from climbing the stairs, but from crying.

"I brought this." Her soft voice reached his ears, welcome after so long. "I…we…Natsumi helped me make it, it was her idea, actually, because I didn't know what to do and…"

It had been planned, Ban realized; they'd worked on both him and Himiko. Ginji knew them both well, knew there was a chance that one of them would be too stubborn to move. His mouth worked before he could think of what to say properly, and he blurted, "Don't apologize."

Suddenly the box of pizza was in his hands and Himiko was gone; he blinked, cursed, and had enough self-control to lay it aside carefully before taking off after her, yelling her name.

It was that that stopped her, one flight down. She turned to face him, gripping at the metal railing as if to hold herself up, her eyes too bright and her mouth a tight line. Ban stumbled and fell against the wall, panting, clutching at his temples to soothe the headache that was beginning.

Silence took hold, filling the gaps between their harsh, loud breathing. They stared at each other, unable to read what was in each other's eyes.

_How much do you care about her, Ban-chan? _

His hand fell, clenched loosely at his side. "I'm sorry." It was more of a soft growl than a real spoken apology, but even she could not doubt the sincerity in it. Ban grimaced; she hadn't hidden her surprise either. He plunged on. "I said, don't apologize, because I _know_ it's my fault, dammit, not yours. It…you shouldn't be the one apologizing."

Silence again, but she was relaxing. She was turned more towards him now, and it hit him full force, how he'd hated not speaking to her.

_How much? _

_More than I ever thought possible, Ginji. _

"Himiko," her name slipped out of him again, almost a plea and her head snapped up involuntarily, the expression on her face making his throat close up. Suddenly he shook his head violently, fist thudding into the wall again in frustration. "What the hell, this is all too dramatic!"

And the tension broke, and she was half laughing, half sobbing, suddenly in front of him and tugging at his arm, already wrist deep in the cement. "Effing _idiot_," she swore at him, "you're wrecking the building, your landlord will kick you out again…"

He stared down at her, almost not believing that she was speaking to him again, and was this close to him. "I'm sorry," he repeated, like those had become the only words he knew.

"You said that already." Her voice was still shaky.

"I _mean_ it." _Why do I sound so desperate for her to believe me?_

Himiko's hands stilled, and she looked up at him with a look he couldn't decipher. Then the slightest of smiles crossed her face, and she said very softly, "I'm sorry, too. I also ignored you."

"It was my fault."

"_You said that already," _she practically groaned, and he stiffened in surprise when she let her head fall forward to hit his shoulder, her hair tickling his chin. "I'll admit that it's a nice change that _you're_ apologizing, but Ban, don't be stupid!"

The intertwining perfumes that always surrounded her filled him, and he suddenly felt at peace. Hesitantly, he pulled his arm out of the wall, shaking her hands loose, and gingerly draped it across her shoulders. She stiffened, then, but grinned up at him before he could pull away. "That's also new."

He had to smirk. "And a nice change?"

Her cheeks flushed and another strange expression flashed across her eyes before she answered cockily, "Maybe." Then she grinned, hugged him around the waist, and stepped away before he could close his arms around her again. "C'mon. Let's eat. Your drama made me hungry."

Embarrassment swept over him and he snarled a curse at her, but she just laughed and ran up the stairs again, tugging at his hair as she slipped by.

**--EnD--**

Ginji crept up the stairs, trying to gauge if there was any murderous intent radiating from their apartment door. The door was closed; he pressed an ear to it, heard nothing inside, and frowned. He twisted the doorknob and flung the door open.

Ban was seated at the table, smoking nonchalantly, staring out the window. A pizza box lay open on the table, with one large slice still in it.

"Ban-chan?"

The urchin-headed Get Backer looked at him, and then looked away. "That's for you." A quiet, grateful smile, one that Ginji had never seen before, lifted the corner of his mouth. "…Thank you."

A full-fledged grin spread across Ginji's face, and he suddenly glomped his partner out of pure happiness.

"YOU MADE OUT! YOU MADE OUT!"

"GINJI! IT'S MADE _UP, _NOT MADE _OUT!_"


	9. Scent

**Title:** Scent

**Fandom:** Get Backers

**Characters:** Midou Ban x Kudo Himiko

**Prompt:** #26, Parents

**Word Count:** 1,528

**Rating:** G

**Author's Notes:** Fluff. XD

_Inhale. _

Her scent was not overbearing, nor intoxicating—it had no single defining adjective. Even after she washed up after a hard day's work, the faint mix of her perfumes clung to her, acquired from long hours spent making them. Still, it was a pleasant scent, weaving and overlaying with the scent of her. Overall it always reminded him of something muted yet vibrant, tingling and in-between. Like dusk, or like the echo of the midnight hour.

He didn't know when her scent had begun to have a soothing effect on him. Perhaps around the same time he had begun to love her. But it wasn't like he knew when that was, either. To both of them, though, it didn't really matter.

The small form cuddled against his chest stirred, made a tiny, contented sound. Midou Ginji was small for a eight-month-old, with thick, fine brown hair and the beginnings of the shape of his mother's face. Ban opened one eye, checking if he was still asleep, and grunted in amusement. Someone had clambered onto the futon to snuggle against the baby while Ban had been dozing—his eldest son, four-year-old Yamato.

Ban stretched out his hand to ruffle Yamato's green hair. Sleepy eyes opened and Yamato yawned. "Is Kaasan coming home yet?"

"Almost," Ban promised. _Two more days_. "Couldn't sleep?"

But Yamato had already shut his eyes, and nestled closer to Ginji. The baby shifted and whimpered. Ban laid his hand on the tiny one's chest, feeling the quick, bird-like beating of his heart, smoothing the material that served as the baby's makeshift blanket—one of Himiko's nightshirts, the one from the night before she'd left.

It was an old method, Paul had said—one of their first parenting problems had been putting Yamato to sleep when Himiko was on overnight business trips. To soothe babies who couldn't sleep when the mother wasn't with them, wrap them in her old clothes, something that carries her scent. It comforted and quieted them.

Ban drew his sons closer, amazed that they were both small enough for him to drape one arm over them. He made sure they were comfortable, and lowered his head to rest near Ginji, breathing in once more the scent of his wife mixed with the milky, clean smell all babies had. He closed his eyes, feeling himself drift into the peace of sleep.

The method did wonders for husbands, too.

**--EnD--**


End file.
